Splunk hopes to build a stronger portfolio in the Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) field.

Splunk has made the biggest acquisition in its history with a deal that hopefully won’t give the company with nightmares.

The acquisition of Phantom Cyber Corporation, for approximately $350 million, will give the analytics company a stronger portfolio in the Security Orchestration, Automation and Response (SOAR) field.

The idea behind the technology is to improve the efficiency of security operation by automating tasks, orchestrating workflows, improving collaboration, and giving organisations the ability to respond to incidents at ‘machine speed’.

Splunk’s vision for the ‘security nerve centre’ is said to be enhanced by the Phantom acquisition, giving the company not just new tech to bolster its own offering, but staff as well.

“Phantom’s employees and technology significantly expand and strengthen Splunk’s vision for the security nerve center and for business revolution through IT,” said Doug Merritt, President and CEO, Splunk. “Splunk is committed to continuously pushing the limits of technology to help our customers get the answers they need from their data. I am very excited to reach this definitive agreement with Phantom and look forward to welcoming the team to Splunk.”

The acquisition is expected to close during the first half of 2018, subject to closing conditions and regulatory reviews. The move will see Oliver Friedrichs, Founder and CEO, Phantom report to Haiyan Song, the SVP and GM of security markets at Splunk.

“Sourabh Satish and I founded Phantom to give SOC analysts a powerful advantage over their adversaries, a way to automatically and quickly resolve threats,” said Oliver Friedrichs, Founder and CEO, Phantom. “Combining SOAR with the industry’s leading big data platform is a revolutionary advance for security and IT teams and will further cut down the time it takes them to eliminate threats and keep the business running. We are thrilled to empower Splunk customers to solve these important challenges.”